Dowry Negotiations

The bride price was five hundred thousand shillings.

Cows, goats, cash—the traditional Luo dowry, converted to modern currency. I paid half before the wedding and promised the rest within a year.

That was three years ago.

Now I'm sitting in Mama Nyawira's compound in Kisumu, watching my mother-in-law count cows and calculate exactly how much I still owe her.

"Two hundred fifty thousand." She sets down her notebook. "Plus interest."

"Mama, the business—"

"Has been struggling for three years. I know." Her eyes are sharp, knowing. "My daughter tells me everything."

I think about what everything might include. The late nights I work. The stress that's made our marriage cold. The fact that Nyawira and I haven't touched each other in six months.

"I need more time."

"Time is expensive." Mama Wanjiku—her first name, though I've never dared use it—leans back in her chair. She's sitting in the shade of her veranda, the lakeside breeze catching her kanga. "What are you offering as collateral?"

"I don't have collateral. That's the problem."

"Everyone has something." Her eyes travel over me, slow and assessing. "The question is whether they're willing to offer it."

Something shifts in the air. I can't name it, but I feel it.

"What do you mean?"

She doesn't answer. Just stands, moves toward the house.

"Come inside, Daniel. We should discuss this privately."

Her sitting room is cool and dark.

Lace curtains, wooden furniture, photographs of ancestors on the walls. She closes the door behind us. Locks it.

"Mama Wanjiku—"

"Sit."

I sit.

She remains standing, and for the first time, I really see her.

Wanjiku Akinyi is fifty-six years old. Widowed young, she raised three daughters alone, built this compound from nothing, became one of the most respected women in her village. She's also the biggest woman I've ever been alone with.

She must be two-sixty, maybe more. Wide hips that fill her kanga to bursting. A belly that rounds outward, prominent and proud. Breasts that strain against her blouse, heavy and full. She carries herself like a queen—chin high, spine straight, the weight of her body a throne she wears.

"My daughter is unhappy," she says.

"I know. I'm trying—"

"You're failing." The words are blunt. "She tells me things, Daniel. About your nights. About your... lack of attention."

I feel my face heat. "That's between us."

"She's my daughter. Nothing is just between you." She moves closer. "Tell me something. When you married her, were you attracted to her?"

"Of course."

"And now?"

I don't answer. Can't answer. Because the truth is complicated—I loved Nyawira, still love her, but somewhere along the way, the attraction faded. Not because of her. Because of something in me that I've never been able to name.

"I see." Mama Wanjiku's voice drops. "Let me guess. My daughter is too thin for you. Too... modern. You prefer something more traditional."

"I don't—"

"Don't lie to me." She's in front of me now, close enough that I can smell her—shea butter and something earthier, older. "I've seen you look at me, Daniel. At family gatherings. At the wedding. You thought you were hiding it, but I know what hunger looks like."

My mouth goes dry.

"Mama—"

"I have a proposition." She cups my chin, tilts my face up. "The dowry debt. Two hundred fifty thousand. I'll forgive it. Completely. As if it never existed."

"In exchange for what?"

"You know what." Her thumb traces my lower lip. "Give me what you've been giving my daughter. Or rather, what you haven't been giving her."

"That's—"

"Haram? Wrong? Sinful?" She laughs. "I'm fifty-six years old, Daniel. My husband died when I was thirty-three. Twenty-three years of raising daughters, building this compound, watching everyone else's marriages and wondering what I was missing." She leans closer. "I'm done wondering."

"If Nyawira found out—"

"She won't. She's in Nairobi for a week. The compound is empty except for us." Her hand slides down my chest. "One week. Seven nights. At the end, the debt is cleared. You go back to your wife, I go back to my life, and we never speak of it again."

"And if I say no?"

"Then you owe me two hundred fifty thousand shillings, plus interest. Due in thirty days." Her smile sharpens. "Your choice."

I should walk out.

Tell her no. Figure out the money somehow. Keep my marriage—such as it is—intact.

But I don't move.

Because she's right. She's always been right. The thing I couldn't name, the reason my marriage has gone cold—it's standing in front of me, wrapped in kanga, waiting.

"One week," I say.

"One week."

"And the debt is cleared."

"Completely."

I stand. We're inches apart.

"Then let's negotiate."

She leads me to her bedroom.

The same room she shared with her husband, years ago. A massive bed, hand-carved, covered in embroidered sheets. She doesn't hesitate—turns to face me and begins unwrapping her kanga.

"Let me," I say.

"No." Her voice is firm. "Tonight, you watch. You earn the right to touch."

Layer by layer, she reveals herself. The kanga falls. The blouse underneath. The slip. Until she's standing in cotton underwear and nothing else.

She's magnificent.

Heavy breasts, dark-nippled, sagging with age and weight but somehow more beautiful for it. A belly that rounds outward, marked with the silver lines of three pregnancies. Thighs that could crush me, dimpled and powerful.

"This is what your wife will become," she says. "In twenty years. This is what you want, isn't it? Something substantial. Something you can hold onto."

"Yes."

"Then watch."

She touches herself.

I watch for an hour.

Her hands on her breasts. Her fingers between her thighs. The sounds she makes—moans and gasps and whispered Swahili that makes my cock strain against my pants.

When she comes, she looks directly at me.

"That's night one," she pants. "Six more."

"Can I—"

"Tomorrow. Tonight, you just watch." She wraps herself in a sheet. "Go to the guest room. Dream about what's coming."

I barely sleep.

Night two, she lets me touch.

Just my hands—exploring her body, learning her curves. I cup her breasts, feeling the weight. Trace the stretch marks on her belly. Spread her thighs and slide my fingers inside while she moans.

"Good boy," she whispers. "You're earning your forgiveness."

Night three, she lets me taste.

I bury my face between her thighs and eat her for hours. She comes so many times she loses count. When I finally surface, my face slick with her, she's looking at me with something new in her eyes.

"My husband never did that," she says. "Not once in eight years of marriage."

"Then he was a fool."

"He was traditional." She pulls me up, kisses me—tasting herself on my lips. "You're something else."

Night four, she finally lets me inside.

And it's like coming home.

She's tight from decades of neglect, but wet enough to take me. I slide in slowly, feeling her stretch around me, hearing her gasp.

"Mungu wangu—"

I don't hold back. I fuck her like I've been wanting to since the day I met her—hard and deep and without restraint. She screams loud enough to wake the ancestors in their graves.

When I come inside her, she sobs with relief.

"Worth every shilling," she whispers.

Night five. Night six. Night seven.

Each one more intense than the last. I learn her body like a map—every fold, every crease, every place that makes her shake. She teaches me things Nyawira never knew, positions that favor her weight, rhythms that make her lose her mind.

By the last night, we're both exhausted. Both satisfied. Both changed.

"The debt is cleared," she says, lying in my arms.

"I know."

"You'll go back to Nairobi. Back to your wife."

"I know."

"And you'll touch her. Look at her. Make her feel wanted."

I'm quiet for a moment.

"I'll try."

"Don't try." She sits up, looks at me with fierce eyes. "She's my daughter. She deserves what you gave me. If I hear that you're neglecting her again—"

"You'll call in the debt?"

"I'll call in you." She smiles slowly. "As payment. Every month. Until you learn to appreciate what you have."

I go home.

Nyawira is there, waiting. She looks at me with cautious hope—wondering if I've come back different.

I have.

That night, I touch her. Really touch her—the way I should have been touching her all along. I see her mother in her curves, and instead of shame, I feel hunger. She gasps when I pull her close. Moans when I worship her body.

"What happened in Kisumu?" she asks afterward.

"I cleared the debt."

"How?"

I kiss her forehead. "Just negotiations. Your mother drives a hard bargain."

She laughs. Snuggles closer.

She doesn't need to know.

Every few months, I visit Kisumu.

"To check on Mama," I tell Nyawira. "Make sure she's okay."

Mama Wanjiku is always okay.

But she's always happy to see me.

The debt is long cleared. But some negotiations never really end.

Some payments are ongoing.

And some mothers-in-law know exactly what they're worth.

Mahari.

Dowry.

Paid in full.